The British Museum

The British Museum is a national museum in the Bloomsbury area of London, housed in a Greek Revival building designed by the architect Robert Smirke and built mainly between 1823 and 1847, its main facade carrying 43 Ionic columns modeled on the Temple of Athena Polias at Priene. Robert's brother Sydney Smirke later added the circular Reading Room at the center of the building's courtyard, completed in 1857 with what was then the second-widest dome in the world. That courtyard was roofed over in 2000 by Foster and Partners as the Great Court, using 1,656 uniquely shaped glass panes to form what is described as the largest covered public square in Europe. The museum's galleries, covering more than 92,000 square meters, sustained significant bomb damage during the Second World War, including a direct hit on the Duveen Gallery in 1940.